THE FEARWAY *

 

Directed by Robert Gajic.
Starring Shannon Dalonzo, Justin Gordon, Simon Phillips.
Horror, US, 81 minutes.

Released by on UK Digital platforms on February 13, 2023, by Reel To Reel Films.

 

Genre films and highways go hand in hand, a partnership going back to the 1940’s with Edgar G. Ulmer’s fatalistic film noir DETOUR then hitting full speed in the 70’s with Steven Spielberg’s propulsive DUEL which pitted man against truck and then again in the 80’s when a sleepy C. Thomas Howell decides to give a lift to Rutger Hauer’s obsessive psychopath in THE HITCHER. The desolate landscape of a vast, barren landscape bisected by a limitless strip of road that often becomes a staging ground for survival and terror, driving its protagonists to the edge of sanity. Robert Gajic’s feature length debut THE FEARWAY pits a young couple, Michael and Sarah, against a supernatural figure through this well-travelled arena of death.

 

The couple are travelling cross country to visit Sarah’s ailing father before their upcoming wedding. Their journey is suddenly halted by a mysterious collision that somehow causes no signs of visible damage to their car or even anything that they could have hit. After being chased by a menacing stranger in a black car they pull into a nearby diner, The Last Stop, and soon discover that they keep unwittingly returning to the scene of the accident, all the while their mysterious pursuer gets closer and closer to them as they try to uncover the mystery of their limbo.

 

Anyone with the merest interest in mythology or horror fiction will immediately cotton on to what is going on here. Unfortunately, our clueless protagonists take much longer. As a result, the brief eighty-minute running time really feels so much longer and interminable as Michael and Sarah repeatedly go through the motions again and again making the absolute most out of the films two main locations: the interior of their car and the diner. The predictable storyline leaves no room for Gajic to make any attempt at trying out anything new or surprising with the script. Lacking in tension, atmosphere and style the only need to keep watching is to see if your guesses are right about where the film is heading, hoping against hope that you are wrong, and a real surprise could be on the cards. Alas, it is not to be.

 

The cast do their best with what they have been given to work with. As Sarah and Michael, Shannon Dalonzo and Justin Gordon make their characters likable enough while Brian Auguillard struggles with his role of their pursuer known only as The Hunter, a supposedly menacing figure whose mystique and sense of threat is severely undercut by his appearance of a seriously cheap looking set of fangs and claws.

 

It should be here that I stretch the road and driving metaphors once again by saying that The Fearway never gets out of first gear, but sadly I must resort to writing that it never gets past the idling stage and that this is not a trip worth taking. Sorry.

 

Iain MacLeod.